The Impact of Lean Tools on Safety—Case Study

Abstract

The purpose of this work was to implement selected Lean tools—5S, Visual Management and One Point Lesson (OPL) considering the problems identified in the contract under the study, to promote the change of workers’ behaviours, improve the work environment and consequently Safety and Health Conditions at Work (SHCW). Another objective was to analyse the impact of Lean tools on SHCW, taking into account the real perception of workers. To this end, a questionnaire on safety culture was made available to workers before and after the implementation of some Lean tools, as referred above. It was found that Lean Thinking and its tools are an added value for improving work conditions. Benefits such as the best warehouse organization and physic location (e.g., reduction in about 80% of the route and time in travel to search for materials and tools are highlighted); better organization of infrastructure workshops I and II (e.g., elimination of unnecessary items, tools’ organization, layout changes); 41 and 38% increase in the results of 5S audits to infrastructure workshops I and II, respectively; improvement of working practices with the creation of OPL’s for the wagons transport and purge of the oxiperm system pump. Concerning employees’ perception of the Lean tools implementation and their impact on the work conditions, it was found that 83.4% of workers agree that the work environment has been improved.